Bloom Energy Corporation

Other

David Edmonston

Martin Perry

Michael Petrucha

David Weingaertner

Matthias Gottmann

Stephen Couse

Ivan Hartana

Tad Armstrong

James Wilson

Emad El Batawi

Robert M Hintz

Siddharth Patel

Arne Watson Ballantine

Andy Ta

Harald Herchen

Swaminathan Venkataraman

Ian Russell

Dien Nguyen

John Fisher

Chad Pearson

Nilanjana Basu

William David Lyle

Ramesha Guntanur

Paturi Balaji Narasimha Prasad

Kyle Kekelis

Adil Ashary

Prasad Pmsvvsv

Michael Gasda

Vlad Kalika

Jayakumar Krishnadass

Avinash Verma

Navaneetha Krishnan

Ram Ramanan

Nathan Ben Erlin

Karanpal Bhangu

Adrian Basharain

Tyler Dawson

Kurt Risic

Mark Stanton

Michael Dubuk

Jesse Doty

Alejandro Carlos Lavernia

Michael Lesher

Victor Fung

Shannon Bell

Samuel Juday

Virpaul Bains

Victor Silva

Joshua Baime

Yashas Keshav

Paul Bhangu

Subhash Chander Deswal

Matthias Gottman

Pawan Patil

Hemant Gedam

Nandan Joshi

Thuy Thanh Muhl

Navaneethakrishnan Govindarasu

Ralion Herzog

Rupa Sindhu Gunnam

Jake Lung

Kidus Tsegay

Ananda Sundararajan

Gary Walth

A fuel cell system includes a plurality of fuel cell segments, each segment having a plurality of fuel cells. The segments include a positive terminal having a positive voltage with respect to ground and a negative terminal. The fuel cell system also includes at least one component electrically connecting the negative terminal to ground, the at least one component configured to decrease a surge current through the segments.

Fuel cell stack grounding through an impedance creating element

A method of operating an electrolyzer module includes providing a first air stream and steam into a stack of electrolyzer cells located in a hotbox and outputting a product stream containing hydrogen and steam, and an oxygen exhaust stream, providing the product stream to an internal product cooler (IPC) heat exchanger located in the hotbox to reduce the temperature of the product stream by transferring heat to the first air stream, and providing the product stream from the IPC to an external product cooler (EPC) heat exchanger located outside of the hotbox and inside of a cabinet housing the hotbox to further reduce the temperature of the product stream by transferring heat to a fluid stream.

Electrolyzer cell module and method of operating thereof using separate stack air flow and product cooling flow

An electrolyzer system includes a splitter configured to split a first air inlet stream into a bypass air stream and a second air inlet stream, a stack of electrolyzer cells configured receive steam and the second air inlet stream and output a product stream containing hydrogen and an oxygen exhaust stream, such that the bypass air stream is configured to bypass the stack, and a product cooler heat exchanger configured to cool the product stream using the first air inlet stream.

Solid oxide electrolyzer system including air bypass

An electrochemical cell system includes electrochemical cell columns arranged in an annular configuration over a support, each cell column having a front side that faces away from a center of the annular configuration, a back side that faces the center of the annular configuration, and opposing first and second sides that connect the front and back sides, and multi-component baffle assemblies located between adjacent cell columns and including at least one air bypass mitigation feature configured to reduce or prevent air from flowing between the cell columns.

Electrochemical cell system containing air baffle assembly with air bypass mitigation features and method of operating thereof

A fuel cell system includes a fuel cell stack, an anode tail gas oxidizer (ATO), an ATO injector configured to mix a first portion of an anode exhaust from the fuel cell stack with a cathode exhaust from the fuel cell stack and to provide a mixture of the first portion of the anode exhaust and the cathode exhaust into the ATO, an anode exhaust conduit which is configured to provide the first portion of the anode exhaust into the ATO injector, and cathode exhaust conduit which is configured to provide at least a portion of the cathode exhaust from the fuel cell stack into the ATO injector. The ATO injector includes injector tubes or injection apertures.

Fuel cell system including ATO injector and method of operating the same

A fuel cell column includes a stack of alternating fuel cells and interconnects, where the interconnects separate adjacent fuel cells in the stack and contain fuel and air channels which are configured to provide respective fuel and air to the fuel cells. a manifold plate containing a bottom inlet hole and a bottom outlet hole located in a bottom surface of the manifold plate, top outlet holes and top inlet holes formed in opposing sides of a top surface of the manifold plate, outlet channels fluidly connecting the top outlet holes to the bottom inlet hole, and inlet channels fluidly connecting the top inlet holes to the bottom outlet hole, and a mitigation structure configured to reduce stress applied to the stack due to at least one of a shape mismatch or coefficient of thermal expansion mismatch between the stack and the manifold plate.

Fuel cell column including stress mitigation structures

A fuel cell system includes a stack of fuel cells, a cathode recuperator configured to heat air using cathode exhaust output from the stack, and an air inlet baffle disposed between the cathode recuperator and the stack and containing at least two rows of apertures which are separated along a vertical direction and configured to provide the heated air output from the cathode recuperator to plural areas of the stack.

Fuel cell system including air inlet baffle and method of operating thereof

A method of operating a fuel cell system includes providing an anode exhaust from a fuel cell stack to a water injector, supplying water to the water injector, and injecting the water from the water injector into the anode exhaust to vaporize the water and generate a humidified anode exhaust.

Fuel cell system containing water injector and method of operating the same

A fuel cell column includes first and second fuel cell stacks, a fuel manifold disposed between the first and second fuel cell stacks and configured to provide fuel to the first and second fuel cell stacks, and first and second dielectric separators located between the fuel manifold and the respective first and second fuel cell stacks, and configured to electrically isolate the respective first and second fuel cell stacks from the fuel manifold. The first and second dielectric separators each include a top layer of a ceramic material, a bottom layer of the ceramic material, a middle layer disposed between the top and bottom layers and including a material having a lower density and a higher dielectric strength than the ceramic material, and glass or glass ceramic seals which connect the middle layer to the top and bottom layers.

Dielectric separator for fuel cell stack assembly and manufacturing method thereof

A fuel cell stack assembly and method of operating the same are provided. The assembly includes a fuel cell stack column and side baffles disposed on opposing sides of the column. The side baffles and the fuel cell stack may have substantially the same coefficient of thermal expansion at room temperature. The side baffles may have a laminate structure in which one or more channels are formed.

Fuel cell stack assembly and method of operating the same

A fuel cell device includes at least one fuel cell column containing first and second fuel cell stacks, a fuel manifold located between the first and second fuel cell stacks and configured to provide fuel to the first and second fuel cell stacks, and a dielectric material located to electrically isolate the first and second fuel cell stacks from the fuel manifold.

Fuel cell column containing electrically insulated fuel manifold and manifold jumper

One method of operating a fuel cell system including splitting a cathode exhaust from one or more fuel cell stacks in the system into a majority cathode exhaust stream comprising more than 50% of the cathode exhaust and a first cathode exhaust bypass stream, providing the majority cathode exhaust stream to an inlet of an anode tail gas oxidizer (ATO) containing a catalyst and providing the first cathode bypass stream downstream of the catalyst such that it bypasses the catalyst. Another method includes providing an air inlet stream to the SOFC system via a main air inlet, providing the air inlet stream from the main air inlet to a cathode recuperator, and providing a cooling medium to a heat exchanger to cool the cathode recuperator.

SOFC with cathode exhaust partial bypass of the ATO and additional air cooling of a hotbox

A fuel cell stack assembly includes a fuel cell stack column, and side baffles disposed on opposing sides of the column. The side baffles include side baffle plates containing at least one ceramic matrix composite (CMC) panel having at least one hole, and at least one denser ceramic element joined to the at least one CMC panel at the hole in the CMC panel.

Method for joining a ceramic matrix composite to dense ceramics for improved joint strength

Growing community of inventors

Santa Cruz, CA, United States of America

David Edmonston